


overture

by gaywhale



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Colonist (Mass Effect), Gen, Inspired by the Nutcracker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaywhale/pseuds/gaywhale
Summary: "For someone who's so efficient on the battlefield, you're a terrible dancer, commander.""Stow it, Joker," Shepard shot back, coming back through the Normandy's airlock from shore leave on the Citadel.  "I'll have you know I can damn well dance, it's just not exactly easy with this shit on."  She gestured at her armor, scoffing when her pilot rolled his eyes."Yeah sure, I'll believe that when I see it," he snipped, fiddling with the controls in front of him."You know what?  Fine.  I'll prove to all of you idiots that your commander can dance.  We still have a couple hours before we need to be under way, tell everyone to assemble in the cargo bay in fifteen."  With that, she turned and headed for the stairs, paying no mind to a very nonplussed Joker staring at her back.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	overture

**Author's Note:**

> merry shitscram i have depression and when you're done reading this you will too

"For someone who's so efficient on the battlefield, you're a _terrible_ dancer, commander."

"Stow it, Joker," Shepard shot back, coming back through the _Normandy's_ airlock from shore leave on the Citadel. "I'll have you know I can damn well dance, it's just not exactly easy with this shit on." She gestured at her armor, scoffing when her pilot rolled his eyes.

"Yeah sure, I'll believe _that_ when I see it," he snipped, fiddling with the controls in front of him.

"You know what? Fine. I'll prove to all of you idiots that your commander _can_ dance. We still have a couple hours before we need to be under way, tell everyone to assemble in the cargo bay in fifteen." With that, she turned and headed for the stairs, paying no mind to a very nonplussed Joker staring at her back.

A few minutes later, a murmuring crowd was gathered in the cargo bay, human and alien alike eager to see Shepard prove her point. The commander in question was fiddling with the settings on her omnitool to get it to project onto a makeshift screen an enterprising individual had hung off the Mako.

"Go ahead and sit down," she called, "I'm going to start it soon."

Once everyone was settled, Shepard set herself down right in the middle and opened the file.

At first it was just a loud rush of noise and unfocused video, but it quickly resolved itself into dozens of people talking in a small theater with the curtains drawn over the stage. Suddenly, music began to play, the high pitches of the stringed instruments turned tinny by the omnitool's speakers. The curtain rose on a scene meant to emulate a room in a human house, complete with a large, decorated tree in the center.

A girl ran onto the stage, dressed in a white nightgown. She looked _tiny_ , especially compared to the scale of the set, but her red hair stood out like a flame.

Sounding surprised, Wrex said "Damn Shepard, that's actually _you_. Didn't think you had ever been that small."

"Well no shit, who did you think I was going to show you a vid of? My evil twin?" She rolled her eyes and laughed as the recording rolled through her performing a series of turns and leaps across the floor.

"Think you can still do that?" Kaidan asked, genuinely curious.

"God no, it's been years since I practiced. Alliance enlistment doesn't exactly leave you with a lot of time for dance rehearsal."

"There would normally be a lot more people in this show, almost twice as many, in fact," she said, shifting on the cargo container she was using as a bench. "But being that we were on a farming colony, our pool of candidates was pretty limited. We did the best with what we had, though."

Everyone fell silent as battle raged between the magical nutcracker and the evil rat king, Shepard moving with effortless grace in the middle of it all. The vid continued, showing scene after scene of increasingly elaborate dancing, the audience clapping and shouting in response.

"I can't believe you used to be a ballerina, Shepard. Wouldn't have marked you out as the type," Pressly said, mouth quirked in a smile as he watched.

"Well, it's not something you'll see in my file," she responded, attention fixed on the projection.

Onscreen, a dark-skinned human woman in a brilliant white costume dripping with pink and purple embellishments placed a crown on Shepard's head as a handsome blond man watched, then lead her to a platform at the middle of the back of the stage.

"God, this part," Shepard groaned. "Everyone thinks it's _so_ easy, you just gotta sit there, right? Except you can't move until it's over. You have to be perfectly still, no exceptions. That shit was _torture_."

In front of her, more dancers, in pink costumes this time, filed onto the stage and began an intricately choreographed routine.

The elevator slid open and Garrus walked out, startling at the sheer number of people occupying what was usually his space.

"Come over here, Garrus," Tali called. "The commander is showing us how humans can dance."

Wandering over to where the vid was being projected, Garrus watched for a few long moments, bright eyes taking in all the details on the screen.

"Oh, so they're using small anti-gravity mass effect fields to move like that, that's neat," he threw in, sounding mildly interested.

"Mass effect fields? Hah! Humans invented this style of dance before we even had _internal combustion engines_ ," Ashley crowed triumphantly. (A faint _what_ came from the general area of the alien crewmembers.) "It's all strength training, but the commander could tell you more about that."

Shepard nodded. "It takes years of intensive practice to build up the ability to go _on_ _pointe_. I had just been allowed to advance to that level the year before this performance and I… God, I was so excited. It was like the whole world had opened up for me and I was a _real_ dancer. The _corps_ was so excited that I was finally going to be able to dance with them in the next performance, but-"

She cut off, voice fading out.

"What happened?" Liara asked, open curiosity in her tone.

"Batarian slavers hit the colony." Shepard was looking at nothing now, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. "Everyone in this vid is dead."

The smiling dancers floated across the screen, strains of music filling the sudden emptiness in the cargo hold. After coming to a halt in various positions that didn't seem like they should've been physically possible, they gracefully fled the stage. Immediately, the two dancers from before reentered from the right.

"I'm so sorry, Shepard. I-" Liara's eyes were wet with tears.

Shepard cut her off. "You didn't know." Her voice was quiet and faraway.

The pair onstage were dancing together now, elegant movements perfectly timed with the music. It softened and slowed as the prince caught the fairy in an impossibly delicate hold, her leg hooking around his body to hold herself up as their arms formed graceful arcs to the sides, and Shepard began to speak.

"The woman playing the sugarplum fairy was named Laetitia. She... was like an older sister to me. I learned a lot about ballet from her and she-" Shepard coughed as her voice broke. "She told me that she was so excited to see me dance this role one day."

"And the nutcracker prince, his name was Piotr. He's the one who founded the ballet academy and recruited students. He would work on his farm all day and then teach kids in the evening, it seemed like he never ran out of energy. All of this was his baby- he directed versions of this show back on Earth and wanted to prove that the arts could flourish out in the colonies as well. I couldn't have asked for a kinder or more patient teacher… he never let me get away with giving anything less than my best and he always believed that I could take that next step even before I did. Dancing with him was so much _fun_."

Once Shepard started talking, it was like she couldn't stop, ghosts pouring from her mouth along with her words.

Katy, the _corps_ ballerina who had always helped Shepard do her hair for shows (she was hopeless with that kind of thing).

Omar, the supply depot manager who was a genius with fabric and sewing machines and who had made most of the costumes himself.

Corinne, her friend who was the chief mischief-maker amongst all the students, responsible for pair after pair of pointe shoes somehow being hung from the theater ceiling after rehearsal one day.

Her mother, whose soft gasps and encouragements could be heard from behind the camera.

The crew sat quietly and listened to her talk, each of them aware in their own way that this had turned into something akin to an exorcism. Tears glittered on the commander's cheeks, but her voice remained steady as she brought forth the story of her entire world before it was torn apart. The _corps_ leapt and spun across the stage, smiles outshining their glittering costumes, and by the time the music faded the crew of the _Normandy_ knew a name for each face.

On the screen, Shepard was alone once more, laying on a couch with a glittering crown on her head and the nutcracker doll tucked under her arm. She woke, seeming startled, and looked around- no fairies or rat kings remained, and her face fell with disappointment until she reached up and touched the crown on her head. In a single swift movement, she was standing on the toes of one foot with her other leg extended behind her, doll held high in the air in front of her. For a single moment, she was suspended motionless in defiance of gravity, illuminated by a shaft of light from above. Then, her mother's voice cried out with joy as the curtain fell and hid her from view.

Shepard sat in the middle of them, still as a stone, eyes locked on where the projection had been. The junior crewmen got up and left first, sneaking worried glances in her direction but too afraid of the legendary commander to approach her. One by one the rest of the crew followed, nobody quite daring to be the first to say something. Joker was the last to go, reaching out a hand as though to place it on Shepard's shoulder. Something stopped him, though, and he followed Garrus to the elevator.

The sound of the drive core echoed through the cargo hold, a steady, quiet rhythm that ran counterpoint to her lone heartbeat. As though in a haze, she pulled up her omnitool and opened the file again. Soft music filtered through the empty room, and Shepard wept.

**Author's Note:**

> i watched the nutcracker at 10:30 this morning and got the idea for this and here we are. i wrote this on my phone with no beta so any mistakes are 100% my fault, lol
> 
> i did my best to make the story fit with the order of the show but again, wrote it in one day, so if it's weird that's also on me
> 
> incidentally, this is the same shepard from 'closer', who was originally just a generic femshep until today, when i got the idea to make her a ballet dancer and then got sucked into a black hole of angst. anyways i hope all of you have a very merry christmas if you celebrate, and if you don't i hope you enjoy the day anyways!


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